Old Regrets
by Riikani
Summary: They are no more than strangers. Regrets don't grow old, but pain does. [Contestshipping]


_Yeah, this little oneshot was created out of a prompt in the contestshipping skype group. Kind of rewrote it afterwards. Yeah. I am still alive, don't worry!_

_I do not own Pokémon, or the characters...sigh_

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Old Regrets

It was a surprisingly sunny day and children were playing in the park. Beautifly's were soaring through the sky and May felt a small pain of nostalgia of her own. Pokémon differed in lifetimes and Beautifly's had been long over before she was old.

And old she was. She slowly made her way to a park bench near the waterside of the river that went through the park. It was not warm enough to swim and mothers were desperately trying to get their kids away from the waterside, afraid they'd fall in.

May smiled sadly at the image they formed. She and her husband found out a long time ago they could not conceive children and even though it hurt, May was not going to carry someone else's child, just because her husband was infertile.

Not that she hadn't been busy. Her fingers, still long and slender, were no longer nimble enough to make poke-blocks, even though the children in the neighborhood told her she was still the best. She was at least able to put her tendency to eat to good use .

She relaxed her shoulders, putting down her bak next to her. Where had the years gone? For a moment, she let her mind linger on the time she had been a coordinator, but then pressed the thought away. Staying too long on the topic made her long for things that were far in the past.

May sank back in the scarf around her shoulders. It was not cold, but the wind made it so that she still should stay covered somewhat or she'd risk not being able to move her old bones tomorrow. She was well on her way to being 70 years after all.

She pushed her long white hair from her face and enjoyed the view of the Wingulls soaring over the water. She enjoyed small things in life now that she couldn't travel anymore. She laughed slightly: an old woman like her shouldn't dream of travelling anymore.

She was so lost in thought of times past, when she crossed fields with her own two legs, that she hadn't noticed that someone was sitting next to her. It was only when he pulled off his hat and wove a hand through his hair in a way that resembled a move May knew from so very long ago, that she looked up at him.

"Good aftern…" she smiled at him but her voice stopped in her throat and it didn't have anything to do with old age when the elderly man smirked back at her. But for him too, time had passed and it wasn't so much a smirk as a faint smile now.

"Hello, May," he said and May barely could believe who she was seeing before her. His hair was as full as it had ever been, but any color was gone and it shone white in the sun. His skin was wrinkled, but May couldn't say anything because time left such marks on her as well.

"Drew?" she asked quietly. Drew nodded slightly and the two stared at each other in silence. They had not seen each other for the last 50 years, yet May never could forget him, not quite, not completely. And now, she did not know what to say, not when she as a foolish 16-year old had said too much.

He still could silence her like no-one else apparently. That made it only more bitter-sweet seeing him. He had always been attractive, and now, so many years later he was sitting here, dressed in slacks and a waistcoat, she still thought of him nothing but attractive.

"How have you been?" he asked her, honestly. There was no sneer in his voice, just curiosity. He was seriously only inquiring after her.

"Fine…" she finally said, trailing off. She always thought herself of having been fine, but now, she wasn't so sure.

"Yeah, me too," he said softly. There was no need for them to elaborate on the hesitance, the old hesitance that sounded through their words. He was fumbling with a ring on his left ringfinger, a simple gold band that looked as if it had been worn for many years.

And it probably was, May realized with a shock. It was not as if he had been stuck in that moment at sixteen. "You married?" she asked, a little breathless.

"Yeah," he breathed.

May blinked a little. She thought for a moment she would cry, but tears would not come, and she realized it was only old hurt. "Are you happy then?"

Drew stayed silent for a little while. Longer than probably was proper. But maybe, this conversation had been a very long time coming and there was no place for convenient lies.

"…she's been good to me," he finally admitted.

"I guess," May supplied.

"And you, did you?"

May stretched her gloved hands a little conscious, painfully aware about the band resting around her own ringfinger. It was worn: it had been on her hand for a long time and there was a faded spot on the gold were her hand always brushed against the pokéblock-machine. Ingraved was her date of marriage.

"Marry? Yeah, I did. A kind man, he's been patient with me."

They were silent and watched how one of the mothers lost control of one of her kids and with a delighted scream the child plunged into the water. The woman was yelling after her child and May was sure that he was going to be grounded when he got home. In the distraction, some of the other mothers lost grip on their children as well, and soon enough it was a waterparty.

"…Do you regret it, May?" Drew suddenly asked, his voice soft in the baritone that only came through age.

"Our fight?"

"Yeah…"

"Not a single day has passed I didn't, Drew." And that was no lie. For May still remembered that awful day as if it was yesterday, and not half a century.

They were both sixteen. Shouting at each other. May had been dating this rather nice boy for a while now, and while she was aware Drew was not a fan of him, she had not paid attention to his childish behavior. And why should she? This boy was the first who had actually paid attention to her as a woman since she was fifteen.

May did not see anything wrong with actually dating the boy. Of course she'd want to. She was a woman! Of course she'd be flattered by the attention and compliments for herself. And as he was kind, May saw no qualms in dating the boy.

Drew did not share the same sentiment.

Just after May had turned sixteen, it seemed he had reached his limit. She was just returning from a date that had gone rather well and the boy had sweetly kissed her goodbye, when she saw Drew was waiting for her with a foul expression on his face. "If you waste your time with people like that guy, it Is no wonder you are so behind in your coordinating," he had sneered at her.

May glared back at him. "Seriously, Drew. What is _wrong_ with you?!"

He snorted, "There is nothing wrong with me, I only find insult to the company you like to be in."

May had felt anger well up in her like never before. "How dare you, Drew! I actually like to be in his company! He makes me feel loved and appreciated. I like it when people pay attention to me! And he gives me that!"

Drew snorted, "Then I wonder what I have been doing the last few years!"

May snorted, "Yeah, I do too if you are going to behave like that!" She had wanted to walk away, sob a little and next time she'd see Drew they'd be friends like always. But Drew seemed to have other plans.

"Are you actually kidding me?!" he snarled at her. "I have nothing but shown interest in you since we were ten! And you just did it away like nothing!"

May felt tears burning, "So NOW you tell me! Now that I actually found someone that I like to be with, you tell me you have wanted me the whole time! It doesn't work like that Drew!

Drew glared back at her, frustration on his face: "Then what am I supposed to do! How else could I have shown you that I want you too!"

May pulled her arm away from him. "Well you can very well shove your jealousy somewhere else, because you can't just come to me when it's too late!"

And that was the end of it. Now, 50 years later, May found herself remembering that day that she had put so very far away. The possibility of how it could have gone hurt.

"I miss you," Drew admitted quietly.

May did not reply and Drew did not look at her, instead keeping his eyes on the water in front of them. It was such a coincidence that they had to meet up right there at the waterside. His eyes were still as green as ever, piercing but the wrinkled skin they were framed with and his white hair was sobering.

Like her own skin and hair. Much like herself. "…Too much time passed, Drew"

The corner of his mouth twitched in what may once have been a smirk but was now nothing more but a self-deprecating smile. "I know."

May could not stop herself: she needed to ask him what she had been asking herself over the last 50 years. "Do you think things might have been different if we had put our pride aside and looked for each other when we were young?"

This time Drew did look at her, his eyes still looking tortured but only faint. "I don't make it a habit to think in what may have been. It hurts, May."

May couldn't look at him now. His eyes still felt as if they could look through her. And she didn't want her heart to pound like this, like it always had done near Drew. She was married! Even if she couldn't love him like she should, her husband should not have to suffer like that. Like she had said, he had been kind to her.

"I know, Drew."

Drew shook his head and turned away from her, pressing his hat on his head again. "That's what I thought."

They didn't look at each other again. They stared at the river in companionable silence, like two strangers on a park-bench in the sun when the weather was warm and the wind cold, when the Beautifly soared and brought feelings of nostalgia. Like two people who had not seen each other in 50 years and had nothing more to say even if questions of what if burned.

Like two people whose fate had gotten away, one without a family she longed for, the other with grandchildren he loved to play with.

They stayed until a woman with hair as white as theirs called for her husband after her shopping, looking content with her purchases, and another man with a cane came to pick up his wife from the riverside.

Regrets didn't grow old. But pain did.


End file.
